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Showing posts from August 6, 2012

Tonight's Poet Corner: Second Picnic

Second Picnic by Belinda Roddie A second picnic together is always better than the first; you know exactly what you want to bring, and you know exactly where to sit - far away from the anthills and tick weeds and other insect-infested stumps and ditches and trees. You pick a new tablecloth (a cleaner one, too). You bring more food. More drinks. You wear ideal picnic clothes. Not the jeans and jacket you trotted along in when you last improvised your first picnic with a bag of popcorn, two candy bars, and bottles of water. Now there's sugar and salt and sweet and savory all at once, the classics of sticky peanut butter and too much mayonnaise, the perfectly spicy salsa to go with your tortilla chips, and a cake made from a recipe written by your good old parent or guardian. What doesn't change, however, is the company. And for us, it's still all about the weathered skin against weathered skin, the toes intertwining among dry, dry grass, and the cons

Today's OneWord: Puncture

Sandy's lung had been adequately punctured, oxygen-rich blood poring from the crevice in her chest and emitting a thick, sick perfume into the air. The odor had drawn several people - and small critters - over to her, as I knelt down and took her hand. "Honey," I whispered. She shushed me with the rest of her breath. The knife lay haphazardly at her hip.